Pogo's right on it. Unfortunately, the process of criminal trials has created a false dichotomy among the lay populace: Sane or Insane. With Sane being defined by us layman as being someone who wouldn't have committed the crime to begin with.

There's a third category: Evil. Whether being evil is sane or insane is beside the point; it's still conscious commission of severely immoral acts. The criminal justice system doesn't appear to actually exclude that, it's just that too many of us laymen fall into the erroneous perception that it's not a possible conclusion to draw about a person in a trial. It very well is. A person unfortunately doesn't have to be insane to be evil.

I hate to say it, especially since I've never experienced it myself, but from the description of Rakfisk, I fear ndspinelli's right on it too. I mean... fermented fish... yeeeeeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh. :(

"Mr Holden said it was worse to sentence a psychotic person to prison than to place a non-psychotic person in psychiatric care."

Worse for whom?

The obviously correct option, IMHO, is execution. He's a driven, unrepentant, intelligent, and very dangerous mass murderer. It's barbaric to allow such a person a chance to butcher more innocent people.

"Breivik had told the court how he had reloaded his gun while victims sat waiting for him to kill them".

It is amazing that the victims just sat there waiting to be killed. Why not pick up a rock and club the murderer with it?

I worked with Norwegians quite a bit and always timed my visits to go in their short, glorious summers. Norway's scenery is spectacular and the people are really sweet but did not impress me as being very bright or tough. The women are tall and beautiful and seem to really like Americans.

The Norwegians were not very good workers so my company had to bring in foreign talent to get the job done. Their biggest passion was in doing interesting vacations.

Yeah, the only explanation I can see for the prosecution asking for a finding of insanity is that in Norway you're out of prison after 20 years, no matter what, but an insanity finding could be a life sentence. In this case, though, since I agree with the "evil" diagnosis, I don't see how they can maintain a finding of insanity whenever this comes up for review, unless it's done with a wink and a nod, as an extra-legal form of life imprisonment. How would they prove his continued insanity if he's not diagnosed as having a specific mental illness? Or is the new diagnostic critera "committing mass murder without remorse"?

Just having to eat Norwegian food either in a hospital or prison is punishment enough. It's more punitive than the death penalty.

My favorite podcast (Giant Bomb --- if you aren't into gaming, you likely won't like it) has twice subjected themselves to Norwegian candies. Apparently, they are huge on putting salt on pretty much everything.

They found the candy to be nearly abusive in taste. God knows what the food is like.

I think a few weeks on the couch with a competent psychiatrist will do the trick. Then a couple of months of observation and then release if he shows promise of sanity. I do not think his unhappy childhood has been properly considered.

He's insane? No shit? So what?All that tells me is that he's more dangerous than if he was sane. Does the discovery that the skunk is rabid make it more sensible to keep it alive?

This guy will kill again before he's gone, and that death will not be his fault but that of Norway. He did everything he could to warn them, and they didn't do the only intelligent and responsible thing in response.

That doesn't even cover the fact that letting him live is just about as unjust an outcome as a people could produce.

The idea is that there is some innocence or good inherent in this man that despite it's invisibility, we just know is in there, and that overwhelms any consideration of the obvious fact that he is a seething pile of evil. Just because you want to believe your pet tiger is a kitty cat doesn't make it so, and people who can't tell the difference should not run the zoo.

If the "psychiatric treatment" he ended up getting was a lethal injection, I would not shed a tear.Awful to say, but less awful than the idea of denying what really happened there, IMO.

There is evil in this world. Some want to look away and pretend it doesn't exist. It's comforting to to them to believe there is a "cure" for it. Actually, there is. But it's not psychiatric treatment.

There is a huge difference between being insane and being a psychopath. He is the latter. Since sociopathy is most likely a brain disorder from a poor prenatal and first year environment, it shouldn't be treatable.

The SDs aim for justice to be rehabilitative and not punitive, yet how can one rehabilitate someone who's proud of the great evil he did?

SD justice also works under the assumption that bad criminal acts happen mostly to lumpenproletariat schmucks, not good folks like them. And then here comes this guy who mass-murders SDs!

The fantasy of European SD is that the American justice system is the oppression of the lower, colored, classes by the a racist, hyper-capitalist society. For them to have to consider that maybe the American system & its death penalty may be a more honest view into the heart of human darkness is a very painful thought indeed. That they would invent the legal fiction of insanity to paper over the trial that strikes at the heart of their worldview comes as no surprise.

He willingly took things to the degree it seems to take to get everyone's attention on an issue.

The fact everyone is still ignoring his message is insanity as well. They demand blood before they'll entertain anything but what they want - and then condemn the person, who goes there, for spilling blood.

You guys have got that right. The press fixated on his anti-immigrant stand and failed to mention that did not target one single immigrant in his rampage! That's not to say there may not have been an immigrant among his victims, but they were targeted because they were at an SD summer camp and not because they were immigrants. Breivik's writings are very clear as to what drove him to do what he did, and he was completely misrepresented by the press & now the Norwegian courts.

And don't even get me started on how fucked-up the police response was!

I've got to disagree with you here & support gregq. There were many adults present on the island and the shootings took place over an extended period of time where Breivik just walked around the island gunning people down. There was ample opportunity to fight back.

You guys have got that right,...he was completely misrepresented by the press & now the Norwegian courts.

This is the hall of mirrors I live in, where the biggest crime - the absolute most heinous abomination to the social order - is being able to say, "I see what you're doing there,..."

Violence isn't the worst thing in the world. In my life, I've seen it used (and used it) for good and bad. Breivik was "driven" to an act. You want to punish him for killing kids? I'm down with that. But to let Norway off the hook for creating the situation? That's bullshit.

It's like I always say about cultism - America is responsible for the phenomena and it's crimes. Whatever happens from it, they own it, as the beneficiaries who turned against The Enlightenment. We are The New World - not France, or Germany (who both have stronger anti-cult laws than we do) but U.S..

If a Breivik showed up and acted, here, to expose cultism, I'd have to - at least a little - defend him as well.

Reality - which is unbending - demands that you can't have it both ways,...

I'll agree about the adults, Young, but not the teenagers. In the first reports they constantly said "children." No, they were teenagers. But I still don't expect teenagers to react "bravely" to something so unexpected and horrific.

Incidentally, the same inaction happened at Columbine, didn't it? None of the "adults" responded or did anything at all for anyone at all until the shooting was completely and irrevocably over.

As for the moronic notion that anyone, anyone AT ALL, is supposed to react to this by seriously considering the monster's supposed legitimate complaints.

Bull. Shit.

The stage was set by the shooter.

Take your complaints to HIM.

I have to disagree. The complacency of those in modern society is such that nothing less than mass murder will shake them. People get discombobulated, ripped-off, maimed, raped, and killed by cults every day - including children - and no one does a thing beyond trying to maintain the illusion they're "open-minded." But "you can believe what you want to believe" is a defense of 9/11 few want to entertain, making them accomplices to Al Qaeda.

Little of this shit would be happening if we were as determined to stop it as we are even the consumption of Super-Sized drinks.

Sorry but cultism's got to stop, and the first step in that is accepting responsibility for creating the environment that allowed it to happen.

Like Norway ("completely misrepresented by the press & now the Norwegian courts") this is a sick unethical culture - engaged in deception - and everyone in it, not actively trying to change it, is responsible,...

I'm simply arguing that because of their own cultural blinders Norwegian and European society cannot face up to what really drove Breivik. If you cannot accurately understand an evil, you can't fight it.

If I was a Norwegian Social Democrat & learned that there was some clown who decided that my ideology was so twisted that he had carte blanche to murder my children, I'd want him dead, dead, dead.

Not being a lawyer, it seems to me that the only legit standard for insanity would involve a neurological aberration. If you swatted your wife's head off with a bat, but honestly thought you were playing softball, that's insanity.

But Breivik's actions were entirely volitional. It was premeditated, and he knew exactly what he was doing when he did it. His was not a nurological flaw, but rather a moral failure. And the state does jail people for moral failures of all kinds.

For the Norwegian judge to insist on declaring Breivik insane smacks of the progressive mindset. If you're not on the right side of history, then you're deranged. There's little difference between a mass murderer and a conservative -- it's just a matter of degree, say the progressives. To declare Brevik guilty would be a moral judgment, and progressives never make those, oh no!

If you swatted your wife's head off with a bat, but honestly thought you were playing softball, that's insanity.

Yes.

His was not a nurological flaw, but rather a moral failure.

Not exactly - he could've been acting on the right side of morality but, as I said, striking out at the immoral in (his mind) the only manner left to him.

There's little difference between a mass murderer and a conservative -- it's just a matter of degree, say the progressives. To declare Brevik guilty would be a moral judgment, and progressives never make those, oh no!

And there it is. Non-judgmentalism is a cornerstone of cultish thought (How dare I pass judgment on Romney's cult? They seem so nice,...) and everyone engaged in propagating such bullshit, Left and Right, is responsible.

He should have declared war on the domestic subversives. As it is, if they execute him, he will die a martyr. However, it really doesn't matter what they do. More Europeans are resisting transformation (and corruption) of their societies and are no longer willing to be slaves of the left-wing elite or victims of their imports.

My advice to Europeans is to reconsider exchanging liberty for submission with benefits and to embrace the natural order (i.e. reject abortion and other behaviors which engender evolutionary dysfunction). They can avoid physical conflict through a demographic majority and recapturing their Christian heritage. That is how their ancestors overcame a massive invasion from without and ensured solidarity from within, respectively.

Nobody who does what Breivik did is acting on the right side of morality. At least if you're not living in Pol Pot's world.

Not true - we send young men and women off to war all the time, and they kill men, women and children, with our full support - and they are morally right.

The difference is only Man Vs. Society and, if society is fucked up, it may do exactly what Norway is doing and then be "completely misrepresented by the press & now the Norwegian courts." That is not moral.

Breivik has done his deed, and stepped forward honorably to challenge those around him - it is they who are behaving in a cowardly and dishonest manner, starting with the total disregard for the issues he's representing. Those issues are as real as he and his actions, but any investigation into them will probably ensnare his captors as easily as they have him.

BTW - the world we in the west are living in, now, is Pol Pot Lite. I have argued for reason, logic, and education regarding Romney and his cult, only to face push-back in favor of Mormon fantasists. That was the same behavior of the Khmer Rouge, who would kill you if you showed signs of having and sticking by an education, and such a willingness to twist right and wrong like that is precisely the type of societal evil cultism unleashes, to create and maintain an unethical and immoral society.

Synova,

The problem is... IT DIDN'T WORK.

Because Norway (like America in this regard) is unethical and immoral. They now rely on deception - "completely misrepresented by the press & now the Norwegian courts" - which only speaks to how immoral and unethical THEY are. Not the depravity of Breivik, but why he did what he did. We know how far he'd go, but it's also pretty clear what he (and those like him) have been up against. They face a nation of delusional and/or lying jackals.

Arguing that the horror might possibly have some utility because of the great need and that nothing else will get the message though... ... requires that the message get through.

So you're inviting an even bigger/worse response. I'd prefer an open-and-honest discussion, myself, but suit yourselves. I've seen how hard that is to come by, though I don't understand the reticence to do so. Oh, wait, yes I do - some of the "good" people could find themselves in trouble - that's enough to, both, make them lie AND prove goodness may rest elsewhere.

If there is a way to alert people of the danger they face, it's not undertaking an unthinkable massacre that clearly identifies *them* as innocent victims, and yourself and your concerns as a monster.

I see a man who committed an act, awaiting a fair trial, and if there's one thing we can all agree on it's that HE ISN'T GOING TO GET IT. So who are the monsters? Those using the justice system to hide their sins or the man who his more-than-willing to answer for his?

As you can see, I'm planning to write about this very subject on my blog, because of how everyone assumes, as I rail against Romney and his cult, they think I'm warning against an LDS take-over, when it's something else entirely:

This propensity to twist and spin reality to accommodate the cultist's version of "the truth."

Cults, cultism, and cultish thinking turn us into stooges for the cults, whether we join or not, and no good can come from that in the end. Eventually reality catches up with you, just as it has in Norway, and will continue to do so until they confront their issues head on, just as we in this country need to do as well.

"Breivik had told the court how he had reloaded his gun while victims sat waiting for him to kill them on the island of Utoeya." I'm sorry. Speaking of Freudian slips, who did they say was insane? There is no technical system of diagnosis by which any evidence so far presented supports a diagnosis of insanity for Brevik.

Breivik was NOT insane; he was a true believer in his own cause. He believed that the policies of the Labor party were betraying the country by allowing an unfettered stream of immigrants to flow in and fundamentally change the character of Norway. Taken to its logical conclusion, if the people he opposed were traitors, then the only way for him to deal with them was to eliminate them in order to change the policy. By attacking a party youth camp, he was attacking the next generation of traitors (as he saw them) to try to nip them in the bud. He hoped that his actions would cause others to rise up in the fight to cleanse the country of alien influences, but of course, he was delusional about that; the utter revulsion caused by his actions probably ended any serious discussion about immigration in Norway for a long time.

Note that these are not my personal views (i.e, about people being traitors, etc.), but what Breivik appeared to be thinking.

It's always so nice to read Crack's explanation of what a horrible person I am. And it's nice to read how it's not the mass murderer that should be shunned from society (indeed! listen to the guy! his killings have meaning!), but people like me.

So you see, if someone massacres children in Provo or sets off a series of terrorist bombs at yoga classes, it will be our fault. For not stopping "what has got to stop," for not "accepting responsibility for creating the environment that allowed it to happen." We have no right to "condemn" the brave soul who was forced to do what he thought he had to do, "acting on the right side of morality" though his methods might be considered counterproductive.

If there's an "anti-cultist" 9/11, those chickens will just be coming home to roost, deservedly so. We will be responsible. To blame e.g. for nominating Romney.

Sure, it would suck for those massacred Mormon kids or Oprah-watching yoga moms-- for their throats to be slit, to be blown to bits. But "if a Breivik showed up and acted, here, to expose cultism, I'd have to - at least a little - defend him as well."

You've turned into something unrecognizable, Crack, something that makes me shudder. "Breivik has done his deed, and stepped forward honorably to challenge those around him - it is they who are behaving in a cowardly and dishonest manner, starting with the total disregard for the issues he's representing." Words fail me.

I'll go back to avoiding futile arguments with you. I've said my piece (or let your words speak for themselves). But I just cannot believe my eyes as I read your comments on this thread.

So you see, if someone massacres children in Provo or sets off a series of terrorist bombs at yoga classes, it will be our fault. For not stopping "what has got to stop," for not "accepting responsibility for creating the environment that allowed it to happen."

Funny you should mention that, yashu, considering - as a fellow Utahn - you know about the guy who recently blew up himself and his kids because "I can't get a fair trial in Utah." What a great place Mormon country is with that statement (and those three dead bodies) hanging over it?

If there's an "anti-cultist" 9/11, those chickens will just be coming home to roost, deservedly so. We will be responsible. To blame e.g. for nominating Romney.

"You can believe what you want to believe" - including killing cultists is O.K. - just as cultists killing others is O.K.. What? They're just beliefs! We can all go willy-nilly with them. Anything goes - until a cult or cult apologist is offended. But no one else has a right to be offended, or something.

What were we talking about again?

Sure, it would suck for those massacred Mormon kids or Oprah-watching yoga moms-- for their throats to be slit, to be blown to bits. But "if a Breivik showed up and acted, here, to expose cultism, I'd have to - at least a little - defend him as well."

Call me whenever you or anyone else decides to write a word in support of THEIR victims, then we can talk about compassion, yashu. You prefer they suffer in silence, of course, as you support their attackers/exploiters/brainwashers, etc.

I read about cult deaths and Mormon crimes every day. Do you, yashu? Or are you cacooned in a dream? Do you seriously think I'm going to trip on any others? Especially any designed to stop them? Or, as the numbers continue to climb with your blessing, will I see it as a normal, natural, reaction? An act of compassion for their victims?

I think Crack is perceiving something that a lot of us want to ignore, though his response isn't IMO all that coherent or helpful. In a way, it's somewhat parallel to the Occupy crowd, of whom I would say Yes, they're right in thinking that some grave injustice has been done--it's just that they're wrong about the what and to whom.

Or perhaps a better analogy is to say that Crack is spotting the folks who are busily sawing off the branch we're all sitting on, and I for one usually feel like cutting him a little bit of slack for getting all frustrated that no one seems to notice or care about it.

To bring it back to the original post, take a gander at this amazing story, and see if that doesn't make Crack's outlook seem just a little less over-the-top.

I think Crack is perceiving something that a lot of us want to ignore, though his response isn't IMO all that coherent or helpful. In a way, it's somewhat parallel to the Occupy crowd, of whom I would say Yes, they're right in thinking that some grave injustice has been done--it's just that they're wrong about the what and to whom.

Oooh - ouch! While I appreciate the statement of support, bad analogy, dude. How's this for coherent:

We live in a country that's supposed to protect the individual, but individuals are hurt by cults and those cults - for some illogical reason - have the full support of the public. So the victims have nowhere to turn. They are destroyed, while everyone celebrates and defends their attackers, who should be looked at as a mob and dismantled.

Or perhaps a better analogy is to say that Crack is spotting the folks who are busily sawing off the branch we're all sitting on, and I for one usually feel like cutting him a little bit of slack for getting all frustrated that no one seems to notice or care about it.

Whew! Much better. And accurate - this is our country. We should be working to protect it, NOT electing members of cults who swore an oath to think of their "church" first.

To bring it back to the original post, take a gander at this amazing story, and see if that doesn't make Crack's outlook seem just a little less over-the-top.

The link doesn't work, but I think I know what it leads to - very creepy.

Crack... The man killed teenagers. Those teenagers no more decided on their parent's politics and philosophy than random people in the street. There is no doubt that he did it. What do you think the outcome of a *fair* trial would be? Is there any reality where he's not a mass murderer who deserves a bullet to the head? Or better, his gut, so he can bleed to death slowly or die of sepsis?

Sy, that's an emotional argument. I didn't say I admired the guy or that he shouldn't pay. I said he had a point to make, and it's being wiped away so Norway can feel good about itself and continue doing the crap that pissed him off. They're cerebrating it now. A *fair* trial would shut that shit down.

We do the same thing here and it's wrong. Conservatives don't want to deal with the fact they're repeating Obama 2008. They just want to beat Obama. I want to as well. You know that. But, just as I should've been happy to see the First Black President four years ago, I don't want these things to happen like this - not with these people - and, most definitely, not involving any cults what-so-ever. Even a Mormon saw the deception last time.So, for the second presidential election in a row, I will watch the celebrations while clutching my stomach, dreading the future as I do now. For the second presidential election in a row, I am saying no good can come of this, and there will be no joy when I'm right. And, for the second presidential election in a row, I'm left to wonder about my fellow citizens who - after I lived in Europe and returned home to truly enjoy it - I can no more fathom than the socialists overseas.

All I can see is a cliff and the people I love determined to drive over it any way they can.

I can still remember explaining America to my French wife, many years ago, by telling her "nothing good happens here without tragedy."

This election - no matter which way it goes - that statement is going to be truer than I ever imagined,...

Brehvik is literally showing these people that their ideology is FUCKING INSANE!!! They are literally proving that Brehvik was right all along. Their leftism is on display. Look at it, see the insanity for what it is.

Norway's legal system seems to completely ignore the existence of evil people and how to deal with them. And yet, this is a country that was occupied by one of the most evil regimes in history. The only explanation is willful and intentional stupidity. And the prosecutor claims Brevik is nuts. Brevik is playing the system and may have planned to do so from the beginning. He saw the flaws in their system and is taking advantage of it.